Don’t Mess with MY MOZART

2006, the 250th anniversary of his birth, was to be a year of celebrating Mozart’s genius…

No propaganda, no unthinking “wunderkind” publicity, no exploitation. Encountering Mozart – in opera houses, in concert halls, in churches or in public spaces – always means engaging in the adventure of new emotions, admitting new discoveries.

LGF has (delinked) the goods – an early Mozart opera (1781) has been cancelled in Berlin, because the house is AFRAID of Muslim reaction.

A Berlin opera house has canceled a performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo, after German police warned of possible Islamic attacks—because in the opera’s epilogue, the main character enters with a bloody bag and triumphantly pulls out the severed heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha, and … you guessed it … Mohammed.

The opera house did not receive threats or demands to cancel the show; they did it preemptively, out of simple fear.

Idomeneo’s libretto did NOT include beheadings. There’s a sacrificial ceremony in the last act, but Idomeneo’s son is spared and given the throne of Crete by Neptune. Happy ending – big finish. The director of the cancelled production had ADDED the scene as a kind of epilogue – a cheap political stunt. Not only did Hans Neuenfels break the rules of the celebration – he dragged darling Wolfie into an arguement he would have had NO part of, solely for his own edification. Foul! Foul! Foul! Foul! F-O-U-L!

That’s it – I’ve had it. The gloves are off. Messing with music for a quickie 15 minutes of fame is one thing – rock bands do it all the time. We see the kind of moral high ground they frequent. But leave Mozart out of it.

Salieri would be very proud of you, Hans Neuenfels. He’s probably giggling with glee right now.

In re the current Idomeneo affair: It’s just another example of an ego-driven director trying to turn an 18th-century work into something that it is not by infecting the stage sets & direction with his own politico-artistic embellishments. I’m somewhat familiar with Idomeneo (Mozart’s great opera seria for the Mannheim court, which premiered in January 1781) and I can’t find anywhere in the libretto or original stage directions reference to severed heads of paradigmatic figures as part of the scenery. Idomeneo should be presented as Mozart and the Mannheimers (and his father Leopold) intended. Let his superbly dramatic music speak for itself. And leave off the twisted accretions of the last two centuries.

Michelle goes on to say:

This is about much more than free speech and artistic creativity and blasphemy and insult. It’s about whether we submit to dhimmitude or fight.

UPDATE II: More rational heads are prevailing in Germany, it would seem.

Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans on Wednesday not to bow to fears of Islamic violence after a Berlin opera house canceled a Mozart work over concerns some scenes could enrage Muslims and pose a security risk.

“I think the cancellation was a mistake. I think self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practise violence in the name of Islam,” she told reporters. “It makes no sense to retreat.”